


It's A Love Story

by WelshWitch1011



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Doctor/Clara - Freeform, Eleven Is My Doctor, F/M, Fluff, I Miss Those Ponds, whouffle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-31
Updated: 2015-07-31
Packaged: 2018-04-12 04:26:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4465412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WelshWitch1011/pseuds/WelshWitch1011
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Hold hands. Keep doing that and don't let go. That's the secret." Clara/Eleven fluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's A Love Story

**Author's Note:**

> Written as part of the FFA December 2014 gift exchange.
> 
> Any Fandom/Pairing, prompt is writer's choice.
> 
> Prompt used: "Hold hands. Keep doing that and don't let go. That's the secret." 
> 
>  
> 
> Because I adore the quirky, romantic undertones between the Eleventh Doctor and his Impossible Girl.

He watched them with a kind of paternal concern, wincing at the sight of the cuts and bruises that bloomed upon their skin, almost as rapidly as the guilt resurfaced in his conscience.

Though he kept a respectful distance, he watched over his friends as always; thankful to have them by his side and simultaneously wishing their paths had never crossed.

Amy's hands shook as she tended to her husband's wounds, and though her manner and acerbic words were characteristically impatient, there was a distinct tenderness in her measured movements that held the Doctor transfixed.

Amy and Rory. Rory and Amy.

One would never run without the other, this he knew for certain. It had been demonstrated upon many, many occasions during their travels together; a silent, often unwilling yet unyielding devotion that time and space had literally been unable to conquer.

Wherever Amy Pond ventured in this world or any other, Rory Williams would not be far behind - protecting, guiding, loving.

Waiting.

The Doctor often mused that it was not him that the young Amelia Pond had waited for but the man who now sat before her, comforting her even in his own hour of need. She had spent her young life waiting for her 'Raggedy Man', but the Doctor was almost certain that he had not been the answer to her prayers.

"Stop moving your stupid head, idiot!" she fumed, dabbing gently but unsympathetically at the angry red welts on Rory's skin. He jerked his head as the antiseptic lotion stung the open wound, and his nostrils wrinkled in unchecked disgust.

"A thousand year old Time Lord and there's TCP in the sick-bay," he griped, blinking as Amy daubed the cotton ball against the tip of his nose in a bid to silence him.

"Will you keep still?!" Amy's eyes widened in exasperation and she placed her palm under his jaw to forcibly hold his head in place.

"Sorry, but you know, you hear the words 'Doctor' and 'Time Lord' and assume his deceptively large space-ship will have a better first aid kit than a Ford Mondeo!"

"Shhh!" Amy commanded, liberally soaking another piece of cotton wool to renew her assault.

"Alright, but..."

"Shhh!"

"It's just..."

Receiving a patented and well-rehearsed glare from his wife, Rory shrank back in his seat and allowed her to finish cleaning the gravel encrusted cuts on his jaw without further protest.

Amy watched him closely, her eyes narrowed as she noted the decidedly judgemental expression that was settling over his features. Following his gaze to the plastic tweezers in her hand, Amy paused mid-extraction.

"Stop giving me the 'Nurse Eye'," she arched an eyebrow, the sound of her foot tapping on the ground instantly catching her husband's attention.

"I wasn't. I wouldn't," Rory swallowed hard.

"I'm perfectly capable of cleaning up a few cuts, okay?" she ranted. "And if you hadn't decided to go careening down a slag heap using your chin as a buffer, I wouldn't be picking half of a stupid class B planet out of your stupid face."

Confused as a chuckle escaped his lips, Amy cocked her head and eyed him suspiciously. She hadn't noted any obvious head wounds but she supposed asking the Doctor to let the Tardis give him a thorough once-over couldn't hurt.

Rory cleared his throat and a blush rose up over his cheeks, "Sorry. It's just, you said 'slag'."

Heaving a heavy sigh of impatience, Amy all but lunged at him with the tweezers, her lips pulled into a tight frown as she concentrated on removing the final stray piece of stone.

Rory's eyes swept desperately around the console room, panic evident on his face, "Ow! Ow! OW! Stop when you hit bone!"

"Oh, shush! There, all done," Amy stated, dropping the tiny piece of rock into a kidney shaped dish with a satisfying 'clang'.

One more dab with a cotton ball and she deemed her patient fit and ready to escape her heavy-handed care.

"Thanks," Rory replied dubiously as he placed a hand against his jaw, opening and closing his mouth in an exploratory action.

Amy turned as an afterthought and rummaged in the box on the table beside her.

"Open up, dope!" she demanded, smiling as Rory dutifully yet fearfully obeyed, and she deposited a mint imperial onto his tongue. "You're fine!"

The Doctor smiled to himself and returned his attention to his book as the couple departed the console room hand in hand, leaving him alone with his thoughts and that familiar sense of longing that he had come to despise.

The last of his kind; surrounded by friends, distracted from self-reflection by travels across distinct galaxies and far flung planets, yet still so very much alone.

For a brief moment he reflected upon all that he had lost. His wife. His children. His home. For over a thousand years he had lived a transient existence but the longing for these things remained untarnished by time. A bitter pill indeed for a Time Lord.

Soon the book was closed and dropped in his lap with a weary sigh, and the Doctor gave way to quiet contemplation.

But he wasn't one to dwell for long. His timeline could not be re-written and, on reflection, the life he had forged for himself from the ashes of Gallifrey had allowed him unspoken privileges and honours. Not least of all the trust and friendship of his beloved Ponds, and the chance to help those in the universe who needed his protection from enemies too fantastic for their comprehension.

Raising his tea cup to his lips, the Doctor paused to once more admire the gilt work on the fine Victorian bone china, and he found his mind wandering again.

His fingers brushed the golden leaves around the rim of the cup and his smile grew as he remembered how Amy had gifted him the matching cup and saucer with as much feigned indifference as she could muster. His flustered acceptance had made it a particularly awkward and yet amusing exchange, but he had known immediately that this would become one of his most cherished possessions.

He swallowed down a sip of warm tea and leant back in his chair, and his frown slowly gave way to a satisfied and strangely optimistic expression.

Sometimes, the Doctor allowed himself to hope for the impossible.

-x-x-x-x-x-

The Tardis library was vast and auspicious, housing a seemingly impossible number of books and artefacts from all corners of the universe within its towering array of shelves.

It was generally a place The Doctor found himself easily immersed in; a place he could happily waste an inordinate number of earth hours, caught up reminiscing or reminding himself of the details contained in the pages of a lifetime of books and tomes.

Yet now, he found himself distracted, unable to absorb his mind into the book discarded at his feet, and unwilling to let his thoughts drift away on the strains of the piano concerto that floated above the perfect silence in the room.

Her dark eyes read each line slowly and carefully from beneath a thick fan of lashes, and the Doctor watched her face intently as her expression flitted between a plethora of emotions that he found utterly fascinating. Approval, disdain, annoyance, admiration, even pride were clearly discernible to the Time Lord, and he found his eyes drawn instantly to the soft curve of her mouth.

Tapping the end of her pen absently against her lower lip, Clara Oswald scanned the word processed pages before her with avid concentration. Curling her fingers around the pen, she hastily left a trail of ticks and crosses down the side of the page, grimacing and rolling her eyes as she realised the crosses that marred the paper vastly outnumbered the more positive notations.

Retrieving the final page, Clara's mouth drew into a tight frown, and The Doctor noted with some amusement how her eyebrow arched as she wrote the final grade onto the essay paper with an audible sigh.

The papers were carefully deposited into a folder, and the brunette reached blindly toward the table beside her where a china cup and saucer lay waiting.

She swallowed down the tea with a quiet hum of approval, closing her eyes as the beverage warmed her throat and she snuggled back into the confines of the woollen cardigan draped across her shoulders.

"So, how did we do, eh?" the Doctor asked excitedly, yet the enthusiasm in his voice died almost the instant her eyes met his.

"Four A's, six B's, seven C's, three D's... and a pretty spectacular E," she informed him, her disappointment more than evident.

The Doctor winced, leaning back in his chair with an affable smile in place as he tried to coax a similar smile across his companion's lips, "Oh, come now Clara, it can't be that bad, can it?"

Arching a dark eyebrow, Clara wordlessly passed the paper to him and perched on the vacant footstool beside his chair. She watched him as he scanned the pages, a pained and winsome expression now replacing his formerly enthusiastic countenance.

"Crikey!" he exclaimed, sighing in defeat as he passed the offending item back to her and she simply nodded in a silent reply.

Rubbing miserably at her forehead, Clara groaned out loud at the idea of further parent-teacher conferences with her errant pupil's similarly unruly mother. The apple certainly hadn't fallen far from that particular tree, and the idea of yet another discussion about applying oneself, incomplete homework assignments and acceptable classroom behaviour were not the most appealing prospect. They ranked somewhere up there with Cybermen, the Great Intelligence, and Daleks.

But Clara was a teacher and, as such, felt a sense of duty and responsibility to her students. Courtney Woods would pass her English class. Somehow.

"Eh, here's a thought!" the Doctor suddenly raised his finger, as if a phenomenally amazing idea had struck him.

"I could come and do a dramatic reading! Get out the old fencing gear- I'm sure there's a ruff or two in the wardrobe somewhere..." he paused and stared off thoughtfully for a moment. "You know, I think one of them belonged to Will, actually. Lost it in a game of Ruff and Honours. Nice bloke. Quiet. Little bit odd. Remarkable 'shovelboard' player!"

Clara shook her head as if unable to process this new information. "Hang on, you knew William Shakespeare? As in... the William Shakespeare?"

"Oh, we go way back. Way, way, back. I tell you, when we were writing Hamlet, I..."

The Doctor froze as Clara suddenly stared at him with the kind of intensity that never failed to stop him in his tracks.

"I'm sorry," she shook her head, "when you wrote what? With who?"

Grinning smugly to himself at her choice of words and the retort they offered, the Doctor leant forward and tapped her gently on the tip of her nose, "More of a question for old Shakey really, isn't it?!"

Clara laughed and shook her head as she reached to collect her tea cup from the top of the gleaming mahogany table beside her.

"Doctor, you never stop surprising me!" she admitted wryly, watching in amusement as he seemed suitably pleased with her admission.

The Doctor watched her hands curl around the cup, his gaze settling on the gold gilt leaves beneath her small fingers.

The cup had become something of a favourite of hers and, though it was an item he cherished with uncharacteristic sentimentality, he found it was almost impossible to begrudge Clara anything. He hadn't told her why the item was so precious to him nor would he, because he knew that the cup represented something just as important to her - someone she too still mourned.

Clara, his Clara, had somehow managed to effortlessly capture his hearts, and from the very moment he saw her, he had found himself strangely smitten. From the depths of a Dalek ship to Victorian London, she had become his obsession. He had pursued her through time itself, through his own lifetimes, desperate to solve the mystery behind her dark eyes.

"Run you clever boy... And remember."

And run he had. He had been determined to uncover a deep, dark truth about his new companion; something- anything- that could prevent him from loving her as he knew he would.

But all too soon the Time Lord had come to realise that his impossible girl was not impossibly perfect; she was simply perfect for him, in every way imaginable. Clara Oswald had been born to save him, and she had. In every way that mattered.

Suddenly rousing from his daydreams, the Doctor looked slightly startled as he realised she had been repeatedly calling his name.

"Doctor?" she tried again, although this time louder and with an increasingly exasperated tone.

"Yes?" he replied, sitting up straighter as his head whipped around to face her and he smiled adoringly at her, despite the irritation he found on her face.

"Were you listening to a word I just said?" she asked, rolling her eyes as she found the intensity of his gaze and the affection in his smile to be annoyingly contagious. A blush rose up her cheeks and she lowered her eyes to the floor as she stood and settled herself somewhat awkwardly and uncertainly on his knee.

Looping her arm around his neck, she sighed as she felt his arms enclose around her. This kind of intimacy was new and she still felt unsure of his reactions. The Doctor was skittish to say the least around women, and most assumed that beneath the tweed and bow tie was an incomparable prude. Whilst she had discovered that wasn't strictly true, testing those boundaries made her incredibly nervous. Rejection was a terrifying prospect but especially from him, and there was still some underlying tension between them.

"Doctor..." she began, watching his fingertip begin to trace the pattern of the bow ties in her cardigan.

"I'm really not sure a one man stage show is the way to go with this. Thanks for the offer but I'm going to deal with it the only way I know how... Leonardo DiCaprio and the parent evening next week," she finished lamely, visibly appalled by her own plan.

"Scandalous he's never won an Oscar," the Doctor remarked gravely, pausing to consider this fact before he turned his attention back to Clara, who seemed to have brightened somewhat as she continued.

"I mean, it's not just English she's struggling in. Danny was only saying the other day that she's way behind in his class too. Hopefully her mum will..." she frowned, watching the Doctor's expression closely.

"Ah yes, how is Mr. Pink?" he enquired, popping the 'p' and over-emphasizing the 'k' as if the name of the new Maths teacher left a bad taste in his mouth. The rest of Clara's sentence had been lost on him as soon as her new colleague's name had been mentioned.

Clara grinned knowingly and laid her head against his shoulder, her hand coming to rest lightly against his cheek. "If I didn't know better, Doctor, I'd say you were a tiny bit jealous!"

The Doctor let out a disgruntled 'hmmph' and contented himself with trying to work out exactly where on Clara's leg he felt she might be agreeable to him resting his hand. His fingers curled experimentally around her knee, and he smiled as the gentle squeeze appeared to have been received with a kiss to his cheek.

Putting the eleven hundred year old Time Lord out of his misery, Clara added, "He's fine, and according to the kids in my year eight class, 'snogging Miss Davies' from the Geography department."

The Doctor tried to acknowledge the news in as nonchalant a fashion as he could muster. "Geography. Fascinating subject. Always did like a bit of plate tectonics. All that shifting and rubbing and friction..." he enthused.

Clara's eyebrows shot up toward her hairline and her eyes shone mischievously, "Sure you're still talking about Geography, chin-boy?"

He blushed at her teasing comment and she giggled as she noted the distinctly beetroot tinge that was appearing on the tips of his ears.

Yet he seemed strangely torn between a characteristically strait-laced reply and a suggestive retort, and a wolfish smile soon tugged at his lips as he offered her a small shrug and a meek clearing of his throat.

Clara laughed and hugged him a little tighter, her eyes alive with excitement as she suddenly pondered the evening that lay head of them and the trip she had been promised they would reattempt.

"Right, I'm going to get ready!" she announced, hopping down exuberantly from his lap as she contemplated her wardrobe choices for the evening - cocktails on the moon were a serious proposition, after all.

Pausing as she prepared to retreat to her room, Clara stood behind his chair and wrapped her arms around his neck. The fields of Trenzalore were still all too fresh in her mind, and there was a nagging fear that constantly reminded her that her time with the Doctor was fleeting. Her 'forever' was merely a brief interlude in the Time Lord's life. Eventually she would lose him. She would be replaced, and the idea was almost enough to break her heart.

The Doctor patted her hand, as though privy to the dark direction her thoughts had taken, and Clara smiled as he pressed a kiss to her palm.

"I'm so glad you didn't change. Stay like this for as long as you can, okay? Just... keep being you. My Doctor."

He turned to regard her, surprised by the sudden change in her mood, yet understanding her fear all too well; after all, it was one he too shared and tried desperately to dismiss.

The anxiety in her eyes made his hearts slow to a heavy thud in his chest, and he squeezed her hand and pressed his lips to her palm once again, savouring the warmth of her skin.

"I promise. Semi-retirement, like I always said... spot of water colour, perhaps a bit of bee keeping, and intergalactic hi-jinxs only on weekends and bank holidays."

Allowing his gaze to sweep her face, the Doctor smiled at her with his eyes positively alight with mirth and anticipation. The weary countenance so often found there was gone, and he looked for once, young and untroubled, as if the weight of the universe had never rested on his shoulders and his loneliness had been forgotten.

"Now, you and I have reservations to keep..."

-x-x-x-x-

The Doctor hated waiting. Patience was a virtue he had admittedly been unable to cultivate in his previous regenerations, and it wasn't looking likely that it would be something he managed any time soon. Having a time machine generally negated the need for waiting, and at times like this he realised yet again just how remarkable Rory Williams' feat had been. A thousand years standing watch over his beloved Amy made the Doctor's hour long wait for Clara's wardrobe change pale into insignificance.

He sighed glumly, folding his arms as he leant back against the Tardis console and muttered to himself.

"Come along, Oswald."

"I am to wait, though waiting so be hell..."

At the sound of her voice, The Doctor's eyes flashed open, and he turned toward the woman with an expression that aptly betrayed his shock.

Folding her arms across her chest, River Song regarded him with an affectionate smirk and a lingering gaze that left her blue eyes pricking with tears she was determined would remain unshed.

"Hello, sweetie."

His mouth opened and closed rapidly as shock took a hold of him, and The Doctor suddenly found himself uncharacteristically lost for words.

River laughed, obviously enjoying his discomfort as he peered furtively toward the hallway behind the console room and then back to the force of nature who had somehow materialised before him. Just how he would explain her presence to Clara, he had no idea. Of course the prospect of explaining Clara to the infamous River Song was an altogether more unsettling one. Having your dead former wife appear before you in such instances was highly unorthodox. Not to mention extremely awkward. And potentially dangerous.

"River? How can you be here?" the Doctor managed, unable to help the smile that her sudden reappearance prompted. River would always have a place in his hearts, even if he was not her Doctor. She was the child of the Tardis and had somehow become one of his most trusted associates. Though he couldn't really imagine their relationship being of a romantic nature in the future, that was for his future self to determine. This regeneration would be nothing but a shadow and Clara... well, that didn't bear thinking about - that was in the very nature of loving a human. Ultimately, there would be loss and heartache that could not be avoided. However, the price of not loving her would be infinitely more painful.

River flapped her hands at him impatiently, her previously measured tone now somewhat more hurried, as if she knew that her visit must be brief. Ignoring his question, she carried on undeterred, determined to deliver her message.

"Now, I know what you're thinking... awkward!" she grinned as her voice took on a sing-song quality, "but we both know how this works, don't we, my love?! I wish I could tell you how and why I'm here, but that's not important for now, and of course..."

"Spoilers?" the Doctor offered with the ghost of a sentimental smile on his lips. He pushed out the tails of his dinner jacket and perched on the edge of the console, unable to decide whether her visit was an omen of bad or good about to implode around him.

"Ah, finally, he catches on," she nodded, inhaling slowly and deeply as she looked him up and down, "I'm here with a message, my darling husband. A message I hope will silence those voices I know torment you."

She reached up to press a hand to his cheek and he found himself leaning in to her touch. River was a link to his past, to his wonderful Ponds and the family he had found in them.

"I'm a Time Lord, River," he lowered his eyes briefly, "I'm afraid you're going to have to be a little more specific than that."

River leant in towards him, her breath ghosting his ear, "Clara."

She smiled as that secured his attention, and the masks of guilt, determination and terror that seemed to settle upon him in rapid succession caused a low, throaty chuckle to rise up from her chest.

"What about her? Is she in danger? River, what do you know?" he demanded, his hand landing on her shoulder as he tried unsuccessfully to decipher her mood. River was a master of mystery and intrigue, she had of course been programmed to be nothing less.

"Oh, calm down," River smiled reassuringly, "I just wanted you to know that... I approve. I like her. I was in her head, remember?! I knew her thoughts, she knew mine. You could say we're almost the same person."

The enigmatic smile she spoke through made The Doctor strangely uneasy.

The Doctor frowned, his mind quickly working to try to decipher the meaning behind her words.

"But..."

River simply shrugged and placed her finger over his lips in a bid to prevent the questions she knew he would ask.

"Now is not the moment for questions, Doctor. I'm afraid that's for me to know and you to find out. All will be revealed, in time."

She leant up and brushed her lips gently against his cheek, then drew back to regard him with an approving nod. She gestured to his black bow tie and mimed adjusting it around her own neck but for once he was too distracted to care about appearances, and her stubborn refusal to explain herself was making both of his hearts pound frantically in his chest.

"Enjoy your cocktails," she stated, her eyes softening as she added pointedly, "always been quite partial to a Manhattan myself."

The Doctor bobbed his head, jamming his hands into his pockets until he dismissed his melancholy memories and suddenly regained his senses. But as he lifted his head to address his future flame and demand something that resembled an explanation, he found that the blonde had disappeared from view.

"River?" he shouted, beginning to stalk around the whirring console as he searched in vain for his friend. "River? You can't just turn up with a message and then disappear like some Dickensian spectre! River?!"

The sound of disembodied laughter rang out across the empty room, and he stopped in his tracks as her whispered voice caught his ear so gently that he was surprised not to feel her warm breath against his skin.

"Be happy. All will be well."

He leant back, scuffing his feet against the floor as he realised further attempts to reason with her would be futile. Seconds passed in quiet contemplation and he started suddenly as he found himself almost nose to nose with a rather concerned looking companion.

"Were you talking to yourself just now?" Clara checked, glancing around the room to ensure that they were actually alone. She'd been almost certain she had heard two voices engaged in conversation, but given the fact they were hurtling through space in a police box, impromptu guests seemed unlikely.

The Doctor stiffened, "What? Oh? Talking to myself? Uh... yes. I was. I was absolutely talking to myself. Needed a second opinion on something, you know what us doctors are like."

Clara narrowed her eyes, placing her black satin clutch bag onto the nearby console as she reached up and, without thinking, began to fix his bow tie.

"Doctor, are you sure you're okay? You look..."

"Handsome? Dapper? Wildly fashionable and scandalously sexy?" he offered, his train of thought now slightly derailed as he watched her hands work at the bow tie around his neck, and he breathed in the now familiar scent of her perfume. He studied her closely, brooding over River's message until he finally allowed himself to believe that what she said might possibly be the truth - all would be well. He wasn't sure that was even an option for him but oh how he longed for it to be true!

"Crazed," she filled in softly, blinking as she caught him staring at her with the kind of intensity that made her toes curl and her stomach dip. She rested her hands on his chest, and felt a blush rise up her cheeks as he lifted her hands from the lapels of his jacket and curled his fingers around hers.

Clara smiled, giggling as he suddenly twirled her around like she was the heroine of an old MGM musical. With his usual enthusiasm now apparently restored, Clara swiped up her bag and brushed self-consciously at the front of her dress, whilst the lights of the Tardis caught the sequins on her skirt in a dazzling shimmer.

"Do I look alright?" she checked, feeling her blush only intensify as his eyes roamed over her figure and he nodded in ready approval.

"You look beautiful, Clara. Absolutely beautiful," he replied honestly, offering her his hand in the manner only a gentleman could.

Enclosing her hand tightly within his, he gestured to the door with a flourish, "Shall we, my love?"

With a theatrical click of his fingers, the doors opened upon the unimaginable splendour of an intergalactic beauty spot. Cascading waterfalls of rainbow coloured light lit up the city scape below and the glow of the stars that dotted the ink black sky twinkled like street lights across the landscape. In short, it was perhaps the most beautiful sight Clara had ever seen.

The Doctor heard a breathy 'oh, my stars' escape her lips, and he chuckled to himself as he too took in the sights before him with greedy eyes. Yet quickly the draw of the woman beside him won out and he found his gaze pulled back to her, as the star light bathed her skin in an ethereal glow. He wondered if perhaps anything in the universe could possibly be more enchanting than she was in that moment.

He moved as if to take a step forwards and was confused when he felt Clara's hand tug him back. She glanced up at him furtively, ducking her head and averting her eyes as she tried to muster the courage to speak.

The majesty of the view had momentarily side-tracked the young woman, but the weight of his words had now struck her; my love.

Forgoing an attempt at the bravado she might have liked to conceal her vulnerability, Clara raised her brown eyed gaze to his and offered a timid smile.

"Am I?"

The Doctor gazed out across the galaxy and thought over her question for a moment. He felt her hand enclosed within his and how perfectly they fit together. The answer to her question seemed almost as impossible as her existence.

"Clara Oswald, in all of my life...through all of time and space... I think perhaps you always have been."

Clara emitted a tiny sob of surprise, but the sincerity of his words and the tenderness she found in his eyes assured her that this was the truth. She rolled her eyes at her own response and laughed softly as she leant up on tip toe to throw her arms around his neck. Her lips crashed against his in an urgent kiss that left both of them rendered breathless, and a deep red blush exploded across the Doctor's cheeks. His hands settled across her back and he pulled her closer, pressing kisses into her hair as he spoke her name over and over again.

Reclaiming his hand for her own, Clara broke away from their embrace and directed her eyes to the sky.

"Come on then, chin-boy. You promised me the stars."

He nodded in agreement, glancing between his companion and the city laid out before them with an unfamiliar sense of peace suddenly enveloping him.

He spoke the word quietly, softly, as if making a promise to himself as well as to the woman beside him. It was the only thing he could think of, but somehow it seemed strangely apt for the leap of faith they were about to take.

"Geronimo?"

Squeezing his hand, Clara simply nodded.

"Geronimo."

Because this chapter of his life he has waited for, for over a thousand years, chasing the impossible across the fabric of time in search of this very moment.

And because this is where the story of the Doctor and Clara Oswald truly begins.

This is a love story.


End file.
